In The Vampire Lestat‘s final episodes, we see Armand and Daniel come together to be on the same team. And we hear Armand refer to them as “companions,” while Daniel has a different, more purple set of words to describe them. (“Manther,” etc.) The pair began the season quite estranged, with Armand having run away after turning Daniel, and Daniel furious at being made, or perhaps simply, left by his maker. As we exit The Vampire Lestat, Nerdist chatted with Assad Zaman and Eric Bogosian about where we leave the complicated pair after the season’s finale episode. And the answer is, Armand and Daniel are still not totally sure where they are with one another, but they do know and see each other very clearly.
Bogosian shares that Armand and Daniel’s relationship involves great degrees of intensity, “I think that given their tremendous energies, and there’s no question they both have huge energies, that there’s been these huge power shifts. I don’t know that they’re necessarily necking twenty-four-seven. I think what they’re doing is that when they’re around each other, it’s very intense. And also, it would have to be very intense to build into what we end up doing, beheading those two guys. I mean, how did we get to that?”
It’s a critical question. One that we’ll likely have to wait until a potential season four of The Vampire Lestat to know more about. But, if there’s one thing we do know, it’s that there’s no vampiric meddling happening when it comes to Daniel and Armand coming together. Though Bogosian briefly muses on how powerful Armand is and how he is able to basically hypnotize people with his mind, ultimately Daniel has “picked up the scythe to do some head lopping” of his own free will.
Zaman confirms, “Armand uses his mind tricks. We’ve seen him use them. We assume he’s used it with Alex, and we know he’s used it with Larry. Those manipulations are supernatural manipulations. I think with Daniel, it’s kind of been a bog-standard wearing him down and also pushing the right buttons because I know the way he’s being treated by Lestat, and I know who he is, and I know how to manipulate him. That’s the old-fashioned coercing him into it.”
In the end, for the pair, it’s all about knowing one another on this intense, connected level. And, to be honest, we find it refreshing that Armand refuses to use his powers to get Daniel to do what he wants. But instead, puts in the time, effort, and old-school “I know you better than you know yourself” manipulations to get what he wants.
It’s not necessarily smooth sailing, though. Bogosian offers, “I think he’s still really angry at Armand. He’s angry at everybody. He just needs to find a spot where he can put himself down strongly so he can start to wreak revenge on these jerks who’ve completely messed him up.” But, on the other hand, Bogosian likens Armand to Iago from Othello, “stoking the fires” of Daniel. And likely, stoking the fires away from himself.
But, in the end, there’s something that bonds Armand and Daniel together in a softer way… As soft as the pair of these vampires could ever be. Soft, but kind of passionate? We’ll take it. Bogosian offers us this new metaphor for the pair, and it’s a sweet one.
“I think as Armand keeps ripping away layers of Daniel’s personality, it does get down to some basic things.” He notes, “And at that point, you start to have two human, well, not human beings, vampires who are seeing deep down the raw energy, the raw desire, the raw need to control and achieve power in one another. I think at that level they start to… It’s like if you’ve ever been somewhere in a truly foreign land and you run into somebody you know, suddenly you feel like you really like them a lot, even though you barely knew them wherever you come from. And then it’s like, ‘Oh my God, you’re here too.’ And I think there’s a little bit of that. There’s got to be a certain loneliness. He mentions that. He says it very early on, Daniel says, ‘Vampire loneliness. I understand it now.’”
And, in however twisted of ways, Armand and Daniel ease that vampire loneliness in one another as no one else can. Cue the awwwwws.
The Vampire Lestat is now streaming on AMC and AMC+ in full. You can snag The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice to read, if you’d like to know a little bit more about what’s going on.
Rotem Rusak is the Editor-in-Chief of Nerdist. She’s STILL ready for Armand and Daniel to become canon in The Vampire Lestat so one of her ships can finally sail, but hey, so are Eric Bogosian and Assad Zaman. So the company in the Devil’s Minion standby line is good.
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